Elsner, LeGrice

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AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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3682 Ex Parte Nicholas et al 10456826 - (D) KIM 103 103 CARDINAL LAW GROUP FRANK C. NICHOLAS DURAN, ARTHUR D

AFFIRMED
Tech Center 1600 Biotechnology and Organic Chemistry
1661 Ex Parte Meilland 12929715 - (D) McCOLLUM 102 BUCHANAN, INGERSOLL & ROONEY PC PARA, ANNETTE H

As with utility patents, “only an ‘enabling’ publication is effective as a bar [under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)] to a subsequent [plant] patent.” In re LeGrice, 301 F.2d 929, 1138 (CCPA 1962). However, “evidence of [a] foreign sale of a claimed reproducible plant variety may enable an otherwise non-enabled printed publication disclosing that plant, thereby creating a § 102(b) bar.” In re Elsner, 381 F.3d 1125, 1128 (Fed. Cir. 2004). In particular,

[w]hen a publication identifies the plant that is invented or discovered and a foreign sale occurs that puts one of ordinary skill in the art in possession of the plant itself, which, based on the level of ordinary skill in the art, permits asexual reproduction without undue experimentation, that combination of facts and events so directly conveys the essential knowledge of the invention that the sale combines with the publication to erect a statutory bar.

Id. at 1129.

“[T]he precise focus of the analysis is not whether the foreign sales are themselves § 102(b) prior art, but whether the publication has placed the claimed invention in the possession of the public before the critical date.” Id. at 1129-30. In this regard, the Elsner court explained that “[t]he foreign sale must not be an obscure, solitary occurrence that would go unnoticed by those skilled in the art. Its availability must have been known in the art, just as a printed publication must be publicly available.” Id. at 1131. In addition, the Elsner court explained that, “even if the interested public would readily know of the foreign sales, those sales [must] enable[ ] one of ordinary skill in the art to reproduce the claimed plants without undue experimentation.” Id.

LeGrice, In re, 301 F.2d 929, 133 USPQ 365 (CCPA 1962) 2121.03

Elsner, In re,381 F.3d 1125, 72 USPQ2d 1038 (Fed. Cir. 2004) 2121.03

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